Michael Saylor, the co-founder and executive chairman of the business intelligence company MicroStrategy, recently responded to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article that questioned his company’s bitcoin (BTC) investment strategy.
What happened?
In August 2022, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Michael Saylor Bet Billions on Bitcoin and Lost”. The article criticized Saylor’s investment in the leading crypto asset suggesting that he had made a risky bet with billions of dollars in company funds.
“MicroStrategy’s strategy was only to buy and hold bitcoin. There was no profit-taking. There also was no hedging against the inevitable volatility and tumbles. When the selloffs came, MicroStrategy was exposed to the full breadth of them”, the article said.
Notably, the article was published during a period of BTC price volatility. According to the publication, the company sat at a loss of $1 billion, much of that from bitcoin. The flagship cryptocurrency traded below $20,000 as of June 2022.
Saylor: Still Betting on Bitcoin
In a recent post on X (Twitter), the long-term Bitcoin proponent made a notably mocking tweet in response to that WSJ article. He said “Still Betting on Bitcoin”
Saylor’s response comes as the price performance of Bitcoin has been impressive lately. The underlying cryptocurrency has now surpassed the $51,000 price point.
Therefore, MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin portfolio has increased by $4.06 billion to reach $10 billion, representing a 67.93% gain on its Bitcoin holdings. With the purchase of 850 BTCs earlier this month, the firm holds a total of 190,000 BTC, bought at an average price of around $31,224 and a total cost of $5.93 billion.
With that unit of BTC, the business intelligence firm holds approximately 1% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply. The latest surge in Bitcoin price continues to strengthen MicroStrategy’s position as the largest corporate holder of the flagship cryptocurrency.
Since implementing the Bitcoin strategy in August 2020, MicroStrategy has been a true believer and aggressive buyer of the digital asset, despite periods of volatility in the crypto markets. Saylor even branded the company as a “Bitcoin development company” last week, indicating that it is looking to attract more cash through its business activities and accumulate more BTCs for its shareholders.
Meanwhile, BTC traded at $52,120 at the time of writing, representing a slight 0.3 decrease in the last 24 hours.
